ECCLESIASTES 1.12-15

12. I, the Koheleth, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.

13. And I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven; this burdensome task [sad travail, heavy burden, grievous occupation] God has given to the sons of man, by which they may be exercised [humbled, disciplined].

14. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind (chasing, shepherding the wind, vexation of spirit].

15. What is crooked [twisted, warped] cannot be made straight, And what is lacking [defective] cannot be numbered.

A new section, as marked by a break in the ancient Hebrew text, now begins as Solomon sets out, as a young but vastly wise king, on a quest to understand life, the world and the work of God.

Not only is life apparently futile, he found, but the world is also full of pain and suffering and problems of every description. In these verses, however, he now reveals the reason for our suffering in this shadowy world -- namely that man is being exercised, disciplined and, in particular, humbled by God. Evidently, despite the futility of man’s own aspirations, God is working out a divine purpose in and through him.

In fact, the Genesis account of creation describes how the ecology of the Earth was radically modified in order to help achieve that purpose after "the Fall", when Adam and Eve, with Satan's assistance, had rejected God's direct guidance in favour of working things out for themselves and establishing their value system (Genesis 3:16-19).

The original creation was not crooked and lacking, like the one we now experience, but was benign and good in every way -- without thistles or thorns or other weeds, without pests, disease or death, or violent creature and poisonous snakes, or any other of the present evil aspects of life on Earth that so upset the gentle Charles Darwin and destroyed his faith in God (Genesis 1:31). That original Earth, we are told, will one day be restored (Acts 3:21, Isaiah 11:6-9).

Referring to this same section of Ecclesiastes, Paul hints at the ultimate purpose of that humbling process when he says, Quote: "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time; and not only so, but even we ourselves, who have the Spirit as a foretaste of the future, even we sigh to ourselves as we wait for the redemption of the body" (Romans 8:23). John makes that amazing purpose even clearer, too clear for many people, even committed Christians, to accept, with the result that they discount such statements as mere metaphorical language (1 John 3:1-2). Jesus, however, makes the fact crystal clear in the first phrase of the Lord’s Prayer.

All the world is a stage, said Shakespeare, but Solomon seems to be suggesting that it is in fact a school -- an audio-visual environment designed for experiential learning, an educational institution whose universal curriculum has been prescribed by God, and nobody can change it and no student can play truant.

As a result, like little children in school, we busy our lives carrying out tasks that appear important and even exciting to us, making and doing things that have no intrinsic, lasting value, beyond the long-term learning they impart.